1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an imaging apparatus and an imaging apparatus control method configured to automatically set a finishing state of a photograph requested by a user of the imaging apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
As functions for automatically controlling a finishing state of a photograph requested by a user, a conventional digital camera includes a scene mode, which is a mode for controlling an exposure by an imaging optical system, and a finishing setting for controlling image processing parameters used during development.
In recent years, most digital cameras include the function of the scene mode for controlling the exposure. For example, if a “landscape mode” is selected, an exposure control for increasing a depth of field is executed by greatly increasing an aperture value of an imaging lens to appropriately photograph an image of a landscape. If a “portrait mode” is selected, the exposure control for setting a low depth of field by setting a low aperture value of the imaging lens to appropriately shoot an image of a person.
On the other hand, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-011413 discusses the following method for executing a finishing setting for controlling an image processing parameter, which is used in developing a photographed image. More specifically, in the method discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-011413, a plurality of types of photograph finishing setting (preset parameters) is provided to a digital camera. Further, the parameters for controlling contrast (gamma correction setting) processing and color processing, which are executed during development, are changed according to a finishing setting set by the user. With this configuration, the conventional method executes processing for achieving the finishing of the photograph desired by the user. In addition, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-011413 discusses a method for allowing the user to further set the above-described image processing parameters in detail (user-set parameters).
However, in the above-described conventional method, even if the user is very conversant with how to express a photographed image, it may be difficult for the user to set the photograph expression method by setting the image processing parameters unless the user is conversant with digital image processing in addition to the technique for shooting a photograph.